Its that day again, when Apple is making public, a slew of updates for all of its platforms. Most notable of them all — as always — iOS 10.3
Lets start with iOS 10.3. As has been largely expected, this latest version of iOS now comes with the much talked about ‘Find my airpods’ feature, letting you do exactly what it says — find those headphones-sans-wire things for you. The same can be found within the ‘Find my iPhone’ app. If the airpods are connected with an iOS device, you can find them on a map, or ask the app to play an alarm, or also see there last location.
With iOS 10.3, Verizon customers will now finally get support for wifi calling for iCloud connected devices. The same was already available for iOS users on AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.
With iOS 10.3, there are few significant changes on the developer side as well. The most important and talked about of them all being a new approach towards App ratings and reviews. With the latest release, developers now get a chance to reply to app reviews.
Siri too has got a few tweaks, with a special one, perhaps done keeping us cricket lovers in mind — Siri’s ability to tell us cricket scores. Yay ! And for those of us who are even more madly in love with cricket, Siri will specialise in telling you Indian Premier League scores. one more Yay !! [mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#dd3333″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]After sunset, Night Shift in macOS will shift your display colors to the warmer end of the spectrum, making the display easier on your eyes. In the morning, your display returns to its regular settings.[/mks_pullquote]
Next up, is MacOS. Apple is now rolling out the official macOS 10.12.4 release through the Mac App Store. This release is significant, considering that it will be the first macOS Sierra version to bring Night shift to Mac. What it does, is make colors during night a bit warmer, so that it doesn’t put much strain on your eyes. Siri tweaks that came with iOS, imply here as well.
According to Apple,
Night Shift adjusts the color of your display after sunset. Many studies show that exposure to bright-blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep. After sunset, Night Shift will shift your display colors to the warmer end of the spectrum, making the display easier on your eyes. In the morning, your display returns to its regular settings.
On dev front, macOS Sierra’s latest version comes with Updated PDFKit APIs which will help those app developers using this framework, to display PDFs with better clarity and efficiency.
As for watchOS, the platform will finally allow devs to integrate Siri to 3rd party apps. That would mean, that if you do own an Apple Watch, you might be able to call cabs via your smartwatch itself. Additionally, there is a darker setting available now under the name of ‘Theatre mode’, which darkens the watch while you are in theatres.
